Hoku Scientific (HOKU) has served up an extremely wild ride for investors, just recently poking it’s head above all-time highs near $15 and quicly falling back below $9.
They are in the ‘hip’ clean-tech space and work from the lovely state of Hawaii. I believe pineapples fuel their technology and pineapple prices have been flying. That could be the reason the stock has come down.
It could also be because we are in a bear market and the Company still has a $150 million market cap with $4 million in sales, but that’s just a guess :) .
By the way, I made up the pineapple stuff.
In crappy markets, ‘buzz’ won’t cut it…sales and margins do.
I said at the beginning of the year that solar and clean tech stocks would fall 50 percent at some point. They are getting their quickly. Those that have no business may not bounce back so fast if the overall market does not heat up quickly. If you must invest in solar, stick to the true leaders in this nasty decline.
Brian has the pricing picture for us as well.
Disclosure – No position
pretty much the entire solar group is already down 50% this year. great call. i never thought this kind of correction would arrive so soon in 2008. i dont own any hoku, but own a mix of larger and smaller cap names. i will hold. this group makes sense even in a weaker economic environment. last year i waited 4 months for the big moves that eventually came to eslr, csiq and then solf. i am using calls. wish me luck! p.s. it is especially easy to see the down side after it has happened. which is what many market comentators on the tv seem to be doing. i am relying o a fundamental argument and looking up.
HOKU shares are trading on future business prospects, not past or current business. These prospects are astonishing (billions of $ in revenue) that past/current business would not get you any insight into. We’ll find out in a couple of weeks whether or not their business plan for the future work pans out. If it does, HOKU shares will take off. Your take on the company doesn’t mention this and, in my opinion, is not worth reading.